Broken, as you clutch the sleeve of my jacket and beg me not to leave
by aheartmadefullmetal16
Summary: In response to a prompt from princ3ssf33t on tumblr. In the aftermath of discovering who murdered her parents, Winry needs the feeling of Ed's arms around her more than anything. Oneshot, Edwin, set at the beginning of episode 23, "Girl on the Battlefield".


_**A/N:** This was in response to a prompt from princ3ssf33t on tumblr. The prompt list this came from is the same one as "Loud, so everyone can hear"._

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When Ed stands to leave, she grasps his automail hand with an urgency, but it slips out of hers. His red coat is gathered around her shoulders, and she is surprised at how much it smells like him- the faint musk of oil and machinery and just _himhimhim_ overwhelms her senses. Later at the train station it falls on her all at once; it's always been him. Even on the days when she has to watch him leave over and over again and she can do nothing but feel completely useless she knows it's always been him. They had known each other since birth, essentially- why would it stop now? As the train whirls away she all she can remember is the way he had pointed at her and insisted that he wouldn't make her cry out of sadness anymore. It's not like she tries to be this way, the waterworks just come as her first line of defense. She doesn't blame Ed, though. Not in the way he thinks.

She realizes in that moment on the train that if he died, she would have _absolutely no idea_ what to do with herself. Would she keep going? Would she simply stop? There have been too many times where he's walked away, leaving her wondering if he'll ever be there to call her a gearhead again. Sometimes all she can see in her mind's eye is his back, tall and proud, as he walks away to save someone again, his brother's metal feet clunking beside him. For a moment she considers learning how to fight so she can stay by his side, but she knows that he would completely lose it if she did; he would insist that she was being an idiot and only putting herself into more danger. She knows he would be right, but that doesn't make relenting any easier.

Winry remembers rounding the corner to see Ed screaming at Scar with fire in his eyes, and the panic she felt when Al had begged for Ed to stop talking. She can still feel the crippling dread and horror that seized her heart and made her fall to her knees, completely vulnerable in front of the monster that killed her parents. But most of all she remembers the complete lack of hesitation Ed had had when he threw himself in front of her, arms splayed wide, as her fingers shook and struggled with the trigger of the gun in her hands. It had taken her numbed senses an alarmingly long amount of time to register that the threat was gone, that Ed was there, and that she hadn't pulled the trigger after all.

The awful release she had felt after falling apart in Ed's arms had been cathartic, in a way. His words had brought her back from the dizzying edge she had been teetering on- " _It's your hands. They weren't meant to kill. They're meant to give life. That's why."_ His voice had broken all through his words, but that hadn't bothered her in the slightest. Quite the opposite, in fact- it helped her to know that she was not alone. In all the years she'd known Ed, there were very few moments in which she'd seen Ed so vulnerable. His compliments were few and far between, but when they came, they were always exactly what she needed to hear.

As she cries she realizes that she isn't useless after all. True to Ed's words, with her hands she had delivered a real, breathing, _beautiful_ baby girl. She had brought a new life into the world, and it was only now that she could understand Ed's repetition of the word _awesome_. At only eleven she had hand crafted automail for Ed, staying up into the lonely hours of the morning to complete his new arm and leg. Even if Ed did sling his automail around like junk, a part of her always surged with pride whenever she saw him using it to his advantage. Because of Ed, she knew that she wasn't useless.

So as he walks away, speaking in soft, quiet tones, she grasps his automail hand with an urgency, but it slips out of hers. _Please don't leave,_ she wants to scream, but does not. She clutches the sleeves of his jacket around her shivering body, and all she wants to do is open her mouth, and say those three words - _I love you_ \- but does not. Even with her new sense of self confidence, the dread and sadness begin to seep back into her veins. _Why?_ she laments silently, the tears still streaming down her face with no abandon. _Why is waiting the only thing I can do?_

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 _ **A/N:** Leave a review! :)_


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